Android Developer Story: Hello English – Changing lives with Android and Google Play

[MUSIC PLAYING] PRANSHU PATNI: Sometimes
it’s the simplest things that generate big
ideas that actually lead to massive change. A few years ago, my husband
and co-founder, Nishant, was living and backpacking
around China for a few months. He faced a lot of trouble trying
to order food as a vegetarian. So knowing Mandarin
was critical for him. The problem that
Nishant faced actually led us to imagine
the kind of problems that language learners
around the globe face. So we thought, why not
create something innovative which could be heavily
accessible, affordable, and effective for people to
be able to learn languages? Almost 80% of India is in
the productive age group. They can get jobs, but
they fail to do so because of English becoming a barrier. So it’s extremely
important for them, and it’s life changing
for them to know English. SIDDIQUE MALIK: My
name is Siddique Malik. I’m from Mumbai. When I retired from my job, I
decided to do something useful. That’s why I joined
Hello English. I believe that there are
so many kids around us. They want to learn English. Joining Hello English
got me enough confidence to go to my hometown and
teach the poor and needy. That’s my aim. I am here in Kochi
because of that. I [INAUDIBLE] my English a lot. Before that I was
afraid of speaking English in front of others. But now those worries
have gone away. Hello, children. How are you? What is your name? APP (FEMALE VOICE): I’m Pujar. SIDDIQUE MALIK: Very good. CHILD: My name is Siddhar. CLASS: My name is Siddhar. SIDDIQUE MALIK: That’s good. Hello. Hello means? CLASS: Namaste. SIDDIQUE MALIK: Namaste. English is good for
higher education. It s a key for a better life. This is good. Very good. Very good. PRANSHU PATNI: Starting
out, we never dreamt that we would reach the kind of
scale that we are at right now. Over 30 million users are
currently using the app. We’re bigger than any
university or school that has existed for ages in India. And Google Play gives
us insights and data into the behavior of these
users so we can reach out to an even larger set of users. What inspires us as a
team and what motivates us the most is when
we hear users talk about how learning
English with the app has impacted them in
such a positive way. That inspires us to keep going. That inspires us to
make a bigger impact. SIDDIQUE MALIK: I believe
what we give to the world, that you will take
with you when you die. So I’ll do that, that’s what.